In my last post, I noted that I was taking a couple weeks of vacation from the SWTOR news cycle. I was worried about my enthusiasm for the game... particulary given that my guildmates have been Eeyore to my Pooh. (At least, I hope I'm Pooh? I'll settle for Owl. Please don't let me be Rabbit.)

I've found a new high-pop home (yay Faeblight! horray for free server transfers!) and have a great guild. I've got myself back to raid-ready and am rolling in gear. Time for a new world of myths to bust.

Friday, August 3, 2012

I've resolved to take a two-week break from reading gaming news. I'm hopeful that everything will be puppies, kittens and rainbows once I get back. (What is the Star Wars equivalent of that? Wookies, Ewoks and Lightsabers? Hm, as a sith, I guess I should go for lightening, lightning and more lightning.)

Alright, now everyone use the force, turn off your targetting computers, and just say to yourself "I'm alright".**

At this point, its probably a great idea to mention what SWTOR's F2P announcement isn't:

The death of MMO gaming.

The death of subscription models.

TORpocalyse Now.

Evil incarnate.

What this is:

A good time to wish SWTOR well.

A ton of potential.

I've always viewed SWTOR as a first-rate RPG just finding its footing as an MMO. Setting up a persistent RPG story with regular continuations via patches and expansions seems to be the most promising selling point of SWTOR.

Problem is, most RPG gamers I know are skeptical of subscription models. This keeps them out of the MMO market. If Bioware can now attract these players to the MMO market, they can escape from the mentality that the "mmo market is zero-sum". They can use their solid RPG - for a box price - to hook players on MMO elements - for a subscription. They'll have found a sustainable niche.

Obligatory EA hedge: don't get me wrong, they could blaster-to-the-foot this design in the details. They could nickel-and-dime the fun right out of it. They could market it to the wrong crowd. If they are shooting for an RPG crowd, they need better tutorials to adjust folks into MMO gaming.

Side note: I don't think this move is being made because they currently have between 500k-1m subscribers. Those numbers, if sustainable, would make everyone happy. I think they're doing it because they see a WoW expansion, Rift expansion, GW2,... and wonder what would happen to those numbers unless they do something big.